Broken Dreams
by Nightmare Prince
Summary: "She blames herself for the world being broken, never understanding that it has been broken from the very beginning. She's a survivor and she's lived through war but she doesn't know if she can live through the peace." Hermione Granger deals with the aftermath of the Second Wizarding War and the anguish of losing those closest to her. EWE.


**Broken Dreams**

She's damaged.

They've lied and told her that it was not so, that she could be fixed like all broken things could.

She knows they've lied to her but she smiles and pretends to understand anyway. She spends the day in mourning with them, passing on her final farewells to those who had once been her brothers in all but blood. She strokes the back of her hand across the cold cheeks, tears stinging in her eyes as she bids them adieu.

Then in the dark of night she leaves, breaking her wand across her knee and boarding the first plane she could. She doesn't know where she's going; all she knows is that she can never return. Britain – home – has lost its savour, there's just too much blood staining the soil for her to ever heal.

Hours pass her by, boredom lulling her to sleep and yet she fights it, not wanting to dream of those who have fallen. She sees their eyes whenever she closes her own, accusing her of surviving what they themselves did not.

She weeps for them even though she doesn't have any tears left to shed.

The Dark Lord is dead and she should be happy but she can't help but dwell on the price of freedom. Too many lie still and tranquil beneath the stars for her to ever see a victory beneath the tragedy. It has never really been a war; she knows that, it has been a slaughter.

A small plastic plate of chicken and mayo sandwiches is set down before her, rousing her to see the sympathetic eyes of a stewardess glancing down at her. She tries to smile gratefully and fails, producing instead a twisted leer that shows off her chipped teeth and bruised gums. The war has not been easy on her and her body still showed the stains.

The food is wholesome and life-sustaining, yet it tastes like ash in her mouth. She wonders if she will ever be able to taste again. It's doubtful. Seeing those she loved cut down like flies had soured her to the abstract concept of living.

They could call her a war heroine for dealing the final blow but she could never bear such honours, not whilst the knowledge that her curse had only made contact because Harry had just fallen. He's her brother, the one she wasn't born with but the one she chose and she can still see him die, over and over again in her mind's eye. She can't sleep, no matter how tired she becomes, because then she'll dream and see his glassy emerald eyes.

She's a survivor and she's lived through war but she doesn't know if she can live through the peace.

She'll see Fred with the ghost of his last laugh etched upon his face and Ron with the desire for revenge upon his. She's haunted by the lifeless eyes of Ginny and Remus and Tonks, their condemning glares cursing her for the sin that was her continued survival.

The plane comes to a landing and she disembarks with a weary sigh, reading the signs and realising that she's travelled a long way from home, hearth and heartache. She's in New York and she knows that it's a city of vices that can easily help numb her pain.

Her path could have led her to greatness and she could have risen high but she doesn't really want to live anymore. She just exists, a shell of a girl who had once been given the world. Instead of furthering her ambitions – the goals she had once strove for in school – she gets a job as a waitress at a sleazy little bar that only opens when the world is fast asleep. The glasses are never clean, usually lending a dirty crusting to the drinks and the patrons are vicious brutes and prostitutes, drug mules and the like.

But the pay is enough to put food on the table and pay her landlord, so she doesn't mind. She knows life would be so much easier if she had deigned to keep her wand but she doesn't want magic anymore. Human, that is what she is, not a witch and not a muggle . . . she is simply human.

A shattered fragment of one at any rate.

The months pass and she tries to forget but she finds that she cannot. Their faces still haunt her every moment, their voices still screaming at her for justice. Death is what she craves but at the same time, it is something that terrifies her.

She doesn't think she can bear having to face them again. At least here, in life, she can try to convince herself that the voices aren't real and that she isn't going mad.

Needle tracks were becoming evident in the crook of her elbows, in the gaps between her toes and fingers. She became addicted to the subtle numbness and looping happiness that they brought with them, that the tiny metallic stings would leave in their prickling wake. It had become an escape when filching drinks from the bar just wasn't enough anymore.

She thinner than she's ever been, a skeletal mass of parchment thin skin and outcropping bones, teeth stained palest yellow from the acrid cigarettes she's taken to smoking. Her eyes no longer have the air of haunted melancholy about them, now they're stained by the grave and just look oh so very dead.

It is a few years later when she meets him again, barely discernible beneath the shadows of grief, time and hardship. His platinum blond hair is more like ash now, scruffy instead of sleek and there's a tormented look within his slate grey eyes. She can see herself in him at once and she seeks him out after he stumbles into the bar, reeking of alcohol with pointed features marred with stubble.

She can hardly remember him as the proud, arrogant aristocrat he had once been. Perhaps she's finally found a kindred spirit.

That night, they go back his place, or was it hers? She can't remember anymore. It's wild and torrid, his kisses harsh and her nails harsher but for the briefest of moments, she forgets her anguish. He isn't there the next morning though and she feels the hope that had sparked so brightly, flutter out as if exposed to an icy gale.

It isn't the end though. He's at the bar at least once a week and they don't exchange a single word but they still manage to banish each other monsters for just a moment on those rare nights. He's never there when she awakens but she's slowly becoming addicted to the peaceful bliss that only he can bring.

She hopes that he feels the same.

He does.

The years pass and they're damaged together, dancing an endless tango as they try to rebuild their shattered lives and fail. It's beautiful and she loves him but she can't help but think that they could have been so much happier in a world not torn by war and grief.

Their faces still haunt her in the night but now they taunt at her for letting them die, for not trying to save them but now he's here to hold her in his skinny arms and soothe her to sleep when she screams, and she's there to do the same for him.

She blames herself that the world is broken, never realising that it had been broken from the beginning . . .


End file.
